Architecture for the Screen

It is unlikely that you have ever found yourself trapped inside a burning skyscraper or entombed within an Egyptian pyramid. Nonetheless, you probably have some idea of these and many other places because of their portrayal on screen. The movies have overcome the constraints of time and place by bringing us images of diverse and otherwise unfamiliar settings. This work covers the many applications of art and architecture to sets appearing in movies produced in Hollywood between 1915 and 1955, after which time location shooting became ever more common (and less "artistic"). Part One deals with the physical characteristics and immediate functions of a wide variety of architectural sets constructed during Hollywood's "Golden Age." Part Two is concerned with the varieties of essentially mythic expressionism to which this ephemeral architecture was put.